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If Route doesn't exist -> go to other route using its default action?

So I'm having a little problem here with routing.
There are two parts to this web application:
  1. Brochure / Display Website
  2. Internal Site / Client Application
We wanted a way to release changes for the brochure without having to do a whole release of said Web application.
Visiting existing named views will take the user to a brochure page, however if it doesn't exist, it will act like they are a client and will redirect them to their company's login screen.
Global.asax:
//if view doesnt exist then url is a client and should be redirected
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Brochure",
url: "{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "brochure", action = "Brochure", id = "Index" },
namespaces: new[] { "Web.Areas.Brochure.Controllers" }
);
//This is home page
routes.MapRoute(
name: "HomeDefault",
url: "{client}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "home", action = "index" },
namespaces: new string[] { "Web.Controllers" }
);
Controller:
/// <summary> Check if the view exists in our brochure list </summary>
private bool ViewExists(string name) {
ViewEngineResult result = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(ControllerContext, name, null);
return (result.View != null);
}
/// <summary> Generic action result routing for all pages.
/// If the view doesn't exist in the brochure area, then redirect to interal web
/// This way, even when we add new pages to the brochure, there is no need to re-compile & release the whole Web project. </summary>
public ActionResult Brochure(string id) {
if (ViewExists(id)) {
return View(id);
}
return RedirectToRoute("HomeDefault", new { client = id });
}
This code works fine up until we log in and go to the landing page. It seems to keep the Brochure action in the route and doesn't want to go to the subsequent controller which results in a 500 error.
e.g. 'domain/client/Brochure' when it needs to be: 'domain/client/Index'
Things tried but not worked:
Changing RedirectToRoute() to a RedirectToAction() - this results in a
finite loop of going back to the ActionResult Brochure(). So
changing controllers through that didn't work.
Create an ActionResult called Brochure() inside the 'HomeController'. It
doesn't even get hit.
Passed in namespaces for RedirectToRoute() as an attribute. I knew this would probably not work, but it was worth a try.
So the question is:
How can I get the route to act properly?

If you can restrict id to some subset of all values you can add that constraints to route (i.e. numbers only) to let default handle the rest.
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Brochure",
url: "{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "brochure", action = "Brochure", id = "Index" },
namespaces: new[] { "Web.Areas.Brochure.Controllers" }
constraints : new { category = #"\d+"}
);
If you can't statically determine restrictions - automatically redirecting in your BrochureController similar to your current code would work. The only problem with sample in the question is it hits the same route again and goes into infinite redirect loop - redirect to Url that does not match first rule:
// may need to remove defaults from second route
return RedirectToRoute("HomeDefault", new { client = id, action = "index" });
If standard constraints do not work and you must keep single segment in url - use custom constraints - implement IRouteConstraint and use it in first route. See Creating custom constraints.

There are several issues with your configuration. I can explain what is wrong with it, but I am not sure I can set you on the right track because you didn't provide the all of the URLs (at least not all of them from what I can tell).
Issues
Your Brouchure route, which has 1 optional URL segment named {id}, will match any URL that is 0 or 1 segments (such as / and /client). The fact that it matches your home page (and you have another route that is named HomeDefault that will never be given the chance to match the home page) leads me to believe this wasn't intended. You can make the {id} value required by removing the default value id = "Index".
The Brouchure route has a namespace that indicates it is probably in an Area. To properly register the area, you have to make the last line of that route ).DataTokens["area"] = "Brochure"; or alternatively put it into the /Areas/Brouchure/AreaRegistration.cs file, which will do that for you.
The only way to get to the HomeDefault route is to supply a 2 segment URL (such as /client/Index, which will take you to the Index method on the HomeController). The example URLs you have provided have 3 segments. Neither of the routes you have provided will match a URL with 3 segments, so if these URLs are not getting 404 errors they are obviously matching a route that you haven't provided in your question. In other words, you are looking for the problem in the wrong place.
If you provide your entire route configuration including all Area routes and AttributeRouting routes (including the line that registers them), as well as a complete description of what URL should go to what action method, I am sure you will get more helpful answers.
So the question is:
How can I get the route to act properly?
Unknown. Until you describe what properly is.
Related: Why map special routes first before common routes in asp.net mvc?

Two ways I could have solved this issue:
Way 1
I reviewed the redirect and just passed in an action in order to get a route that has 2 segments in the url. i.e. client/Index. The Index action now handles logins - going past a custom controller.
public class HomeController : CustomController
public ActionResult Brochure(string id, string action) {
if (ViewExists(id)) {
return View(id);
}
return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home", new { client = id, action = "Index" });
}
Way 2
(from #Alexei_Levenkov)
Create a custom Route constraint so the route will be ignored if the view cannot be found.
namespace Web.Contraints {
public class BrochureConstraint : IRouteConstraint {
public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName, RouteValueDictionary values, RouteDirection routeDirection) {
//Create our 'fake' controllerContext as we cannot access ControllerContext here
HttpContextWrapper context = new HttpContextWrapper(HttpContext.Current);
RouteData routeData = new RouteData();
routeData.Values.Add("controller", "brochure");
ControllerContext controllerContext = new ControllerContext(new RequestContext(context, routeData), new BrochureController());
//Check if our view exists in the folder -> if so the route is valid - return true
ViewEngineResult result = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(controllerContext, "~/Areas/Brochure/Views/Brochure/" + values["id"] + ".cshtml", null);
return result.View != null;
}
}
}
namespace Web {
public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication {
//If view doesnt exist then url is a client so use the 'HomeDefault' route below
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Brochure",
url: "{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "brochure", action = "Brochure", id = "Index" },
namespaces: new[] { "Web.Areas.Brochure.Controllers" },
constraints: new { isBrochure = new BrochureConstraint() }
);
//This is home page for client
routes.MapRoute(
name: "HomeDefault",
url: "{client}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "home", action = "index" },
namespaces: new string[] { "Web.Controllers" }
);
}
}
I hope this helps someone else out there.

How do I redirect to an other area in MVC3?

I have 3 areas at the moment (more will come when I get this working): Login, User and Admin. The Default route in Global.asax go to the index action of the index controller in the login area (Login\Index\Index) which works fine, this is how I mapped that:
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{area}/{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { area = "Login", controller = "Index", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }, // Parameter defaults
new[] { typeof(AppName.Areas.Login.Controllers.IndexController).Namespace }
);
each of the 3 areas is registered like this in the AreaRegistration files:
context.MapRoute(
"Admin_default",
"{area}/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { area = "Admin", controller = "Index", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new[] { typeof(AppName.Areas.Admin.Controllers.IndexController).Namespace }
);
The Login controllers index action takes the users login details, looks up the type of user and redirects them to the appropriate area...... at least it should do. From what I can gather searching google, the correct way to redirect to a specific area is this:
return RedirectToAction("Action", "Controller", new { area = UserType });
which doesn't seem to work, it just redirects to Login\Controller\Action and I can't work out why.
In my attempts to work out what was happening I used this:
var url = Url.Action("Action", "Controller", new { area = "Admin" });
which produced the same Login\Controller\Action url.
Any help fixing this would be greatly appreciated

In the routes parameter, you just set new { area = "OtherAreaName" }.
EDIT
Oh, I see you already tried that. I suppose the name of that area is correctly referenced and correctly named in the class AreaRegistration class, like this?
public class AuthorAreaRegistration : AreaRegistration
{
public override string AreaName
{
get
{
return "Author";
}
}
// ...
}
Could it also be that you need authentication and you are being redirected to the login page?

Parameter only route always being triggered MVC3

I have two very simple routes
routes.MapRoute(
"post", // Route name
postPage + "/{slug}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Article" } // Parameter defaults
);
routes.MapRoute(
"page", // Route name
"{slug}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Page", slug = homePage} // Parameter defaults
);
And here is my controller logic
public ActionResult Article(string slug)
{
return View(repo.GetPost(slug));
}
public ActionResult Page(string slug)
{
if (slug.ToLower() == MetaData.PostsPage.ToLower())
return View("listPosts", repo.GetAllPosts());
else
return View("page", repo.GetPage(slug));
}
homePage and postPage are set from value's in the database. Allowing the user to define the default page as well as the page to show posts.
My issue occurs when adding an area named "Admin". I get a controller added to my RouteTable
context.MapRoute(
"Admin_default",
"Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
Now when a user Access Admin/Account/Logon the page loads fine, but my debugger still tries to go into the Home controller and the Page action. But the RouteDebugger says it doesn't match the current request. I'm puzzled on how to fix this.
RouteDebugger screenshot: http://i.stack.imgur.com/7cpHm.png
Debugger going into my HomeControler Page AtionResult: http://i.stack.imgur.com/uSJBK.png

Actually the problem is, Area routes are overriding the global routes, to distinguish both the routes set the relevant namespace of area's controller in the context.MapRoute method in adminAreaRegistraton.cs file. i.e.
context.MapRoute(
"admin_default",
"admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
null,
new string[] { "MVCApplication1.Areas.admin.Controllers" }
);

I found out the issue.
I had a favicon.ico set in the main area of my site, but not the Admin area.
So when I went to the Admin area the browser made a request for favicon.ico that got picked up by that route. Thats why my routes looked fine in the RouteDebugger, because they were.
Thanks for the help Kundan!

MVC3 Route/redirect problem

My application is multilingual and I wrote the following route in order to handle the languages:
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{language}/{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index",
language = "pt", id = UrlParameter.Optional }, // Parameter defaults
new { language = #"(pt)|(es)|(en)" }
);
This works for domain.com and domain.com/pt/home/index. However, if I type domain.com/home/index it fails (404).
The desired behavior would be it being redirected to domain.com/pt/home/index (pt is the default language).
Whats the best way to achieve this? I've been reading a lot about routes and ActionFilters but nothing seems quite right.

i would suggest using custom route handler like following
public class LanguageRouteHandler : IRouteHandler
{
public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
{
IRouteHandler handler = new MvcRouteHandler();
var vals = requestContext.RouteData.Values;
if(vals["language"] == null)
{
vals["language"] = "pt";
}
return handler.GetHttpHandler(requestContext);
}
}
and have another route without language route value and set its route handler (global.asax)
routes.MapRoute(
"Default2", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
).RouteHandler = new LanguageRouteHandler();
This will not redirect Home/index to pt/home/index yet it will provide language = "pt" to your index action method (and all others). if you want to redirect you can implement an actionfilter but redirecting will create problems with post requests. For example when you post a form to /home/index and suppose it is redirected by action filter, the redirected request will lose posted form data

You need two routes, the other one without the language, or add the language parameter at the end

Try this
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{language}/{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }, // Parameter defaults
new { language = #"(pt)|(es)|(en)" }
);
and modify your action in this way
public ActionResult Index([DefaultValue("pt")] string language)
{
...
}

One controller for whole ASP.NET MVC application

I want to have one controller for all site urls
eg:
www.mysite.com/page1
www.mysite.com/another
www.mysite.com/third/some-text
www.mysite.com/fourth/some/some/some/some
Urls will be created manually, also url can be of "every type"(teoretically you must have posibility to put everything in url)
I don't want to put controller name or anything(action name or id) in the url.
How to write url route rule for this ? I am not intersted in disadvantages of such design.
This is default ASP.NET MVC routing rule
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
);

I won't tell you this is a bad plan. But it is. Anyhow, if you don't need to handle an unlimited url folder depth, the trick is to run things in reverse order:
//maps virtual redirects
routes.MapRoute("virtual redirects",
"{redirect}",
new
{
area = "",
controller = "Content",
action = "VirtualRedirect"
}
);
routes.MapRoute("two level",
"{firstPart}/{secondPart}",
new
{
area = "",
controller = "Content",
action = "PageUrl",
thirdPart = ""
}
);
//maps general content pages
routes.MapRoute("page catcher",
"{firstPart}/{secondPart}/{thirdPart}",
new
{
area = "",
controller = "Content",
action = "PageUrl"
}
);
Note you'll want to put any more specific routes above this and you'll still need a default route declared after this for some parts of MVC to work.

I think you can do this way, just override routHandler
routes.MapRoute(
"dbroute",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { id = "" }
).RouteHandler = new MyRouteHandler();
and you new route handler like this
public class MyRouteHandler : IRouteHandler
{
#region IRouteHandler Members
public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
{
IRouteHandler handler = new MvcRouteHandler();
var vals = requestContext.RouteData.Values;
if (vals["controller"] != null &&
(vals["controller"].ToString() == "page1" ||
vals["controller"].ToString() == "another" ||
vals["controller"].ToString() == "others" ) )
{
vals["controller"] = "Test";// your controller;
vals["action"] = "Index";//your action
}
return handler.GetHttpHandler(requestContext);
}
#endregion
}

igor,
unless there's a really compelling reason to do so, i'd think of alternative ways to present the urls that you want and think about the discreet functionality 'under the covers' that each logical unit is performing. a similar question was asked a while back which i responded to:
What is the advantage of using multiple Controller classes in ASP.NET MVC?
might give you a few ideas.